Fallout 4 Review

CHEATfactor Game Review by: Joe Sinicki

Reviewed on: PC

Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of fallout_4. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

Fallout 4 is a mess, but it's a beautiful mess. It's at once a mix of ambitious drive and tried and true gameplay mechanics that just plain feel right. I've spent seventy-plus hours wandering Bethesda's latest wasteland and I can't wait to go back. What works here is what's always worked for Bethesda, an huge open world full of remarkable choices and interesting choices; even if the same problems that always come up in the studio's games are all the more obvious here. Much like the classic Fallout 3 before it, Fallout 4 is a game that firmly believes that the journey is worth more than the destination, and this is undoubtedly a journey that's more than worth taking.

...an incredible open world that you're free to explore.

Fair disclosure's sake; I'm not even going to try to tell you that I've seen all that Fallout 3 has to show me. I've spent somewhere close to seventy hours running though the wasteland. I've collected more junk than I care to share and made more bad choices than I care to admit. Have I seen an ending? Of sorts, but the wasteland keeps calling me back. What would happen if I turned left instead of right? What if I invested in this perk instead of that one? Much like previous Fallout games, and any game from Bethesda really, Fallout 4 boasts an incredible open world that you're free to explore. I would regularly be on a quest but then see something in the distance and there was just something inside of that absolutely had to check it out. Sometimes I found a great new weapon, sometimes I found a tin can; but that's the beauty of Fallout 4.

That's not to say though that the main quest isn't worth playing through though, in fact quite the opposite. This is the strongest main story the series has ever seen and it adds a personal touch to just why you're constantly wandering through the wasteland. Trying to keep spoilers to a minimum, you're given a brief glimpse of what life was like before the great war; you'll use the robust character creator admire the sights and then boom (literally) it's off to the shelter. You'll wake up two hundred years or so later in search of your son, and that's when Fallout 4 begins proper. The game takes place in Boston and the areas surrounding it, but it's not the Boston that your character remembers; it's a Boston that is still reeling from the bombs dropping and in the midst of post apocalyptic war. Fenway park is now a home for organized crime and much of the other landmarks of the city are unrecognizable.

If you've played Fallout 3, New Vegas or any of their expansions you'll be right at home here, and that's both a good and bad thing. Fallout 4 is likely to feel very familiar as not much has changed in the core gameplay; wander through the wasteland, run into people and environments and shape your world based on your choices. A lot of Fallout 4 seems to be taken almost directly from it's predecessors and sometimes it causes some pretty ugly situations. Some NPC actions and faces look right out of last ten but they're easier to miss thanks to the remarkably living world built around them. It's of course not terrible that the game feels so familiar since the formula works so well. You'll be hard pressed to find a more fun and rewarding series to throw hours into Fallout 4 is no exception.

In an order to see just how different a single play through of Fallout 4 can be, I had three games going at one time (one on PS4, one on PC and one on Xbox One; yeah, I didn't sleep much the last week). Even as an avid Fallout player I was amazed at how much different each game turned out. Even the smallest chances and choices made for really interesting turns. I made it a point to align with different factions and make different choices but the level of replayability here nothing short of astounding.

...that wasn't always the easiest thing to do.

Of course, the game may seem familiar but there are still new additions to the formula that make Fallout 4 even more of a must-play. Most key to the gameplay is the restructuring of the available perks. Each time you level up you'll invest a stat point into one of seven categories, perception, strength, endurance, luck, charisma and intelligence. Each one has a dramatic effect on just how you'll approach and handle most situations, and you'll be using the same skill points on other aspects of your character so understanding the balancing act is something you'll have to become proficient at. I tried my damnedest to make my characters able to talk their way out of situations but be able to back it up if they need to but that wasn't always the easiest thing to do.

You can also level up and enhance your abilities by collecting and enhancing your gear? I'm a bit of a klepto when it comes to Fallout 4 and that's a very good thing since nearly everything you find can be melted down to it's bare components to modify your weapons and gear. You can also use these resources to create entire structures and though I'm sure that someone super creative is already posting videos of wild structures they created but the addition fell short for me. It was great to play around with but I felt like it got in the way of what I was really trying to do and what the game was really trying to be. Luckily the game only really makes you make one or two structures to advance in the main quest line and then leaves the rest up to you.

That, in essence is what makes Fallout 4 so much fun to play. It's familiar enough that most will be able to jump right in without much hesitation but the amount of gamer choice and replayability is nothing short of astounding. It may suffer from some of the same issues that have haunted Bethesda's games for years but at this point they sort of add to the charm of the game. II'm still not sure if it's quite as good as it's predecessor, but if you've ever loved Fallout and ever been lost in the Wasteland, you absolutely need to play Fallout 4 as it's everything that's great about the series and then some.

The wasteland can be a tough place, and you'll want to pack anything you can to give you the advantage over all of the raiders, mutants and androids you'll come across - or you could just bring the trainer from Cheat Happens. This trainer is literally packed with options and tweaks that allow you to make the game more your own. You can add literally any item you need, or max out any stat you'd like, along with just plain making your character more powerful. Plain and simple, if you're playing Fallout 4, you need to be playing with the trainer from Cheat Happens.

Joe Sinicki
Joe started off writing about video games for small fan sites when he realized he should probably do something with his communications degree and didn't want to get into the grind of daily reporting. Joining the team in late 2008, Joe is the featured game reviewer for Cheat Happens, producing up to 10 CHEATfactor Game Reviews per month.

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